


Oh, I Am Tired. But I’m Coming Home

by fireafterall



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Other, Scars, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 07:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21406138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireafterall/pseuds/fireafterall
Summary: Crowley shares his pain with Aziraphale, the only one who matters, in the end.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 119





	Oh, I Am Tired. But I’m Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, thank you for the kudos/comments on my last fic they, as always, encouraged me to keep writing.
> 
> TW for self-harm, though I tried to make it as non-triggering as possible.
> 
> I very much hope you guys like it and kudos and comments are very much appreciated, please let me know if there is anything I could be doing better/anything you guys want to see and have a lovely morning/night :).
> 
> As always, this is unbeta'd, and, not gonna lie, I am projecting but hopefully it's good in spite of all that.
> 
> Title from Party of One by Brandi Carlile

Secretly, Crowley loved Aziraphale’s bookshop.

He still complained about it to the angel, of course, but that was only out of demonic obligation. Besides, the bookshop deserved it for being overall too posh, too dusty, and in all honesty, much more a private collection than any sort of shop.

But in spite of all that, it felt like a home to him. Perhaps more than any other place ever had.

Of course, this admittedly had less to do with the bookshop itself and more with the being who ran it.

“You really must stay for dinner my dear,” said Aziraphale; coming up behind the demon to take his coat. “I just found the most wonderful sushi place and, astoundingly, they deliver! I believe I may never leave the shop again.” 

The two of them had been on one of their semi-regular visits to Adam; checking in with him, making sure he wasn’t disrupting the natural order of things, all standard. But the young no-longer-the-antichrist seemed as normal as could be these days. 

If Crowley were honest with himself, he only continued advocating for these check ins as a guaranteed chance to see Aziraphale.

After the almostgeddon, he had worried it would go back to the way it had been between the two of them before; the way it always did.

It was a pattern; they would grow closer, and Crowley would believe it was for good this time. Then, they manage to lose track of each other for a few years, and when he saw Aziraphale again, it was as if nothing had ever changed.

He had felt he wouldn’t have been able to bear it another time.

So, he arranged for the two of them to check on Adam, came up with excuses for taking the angel out to picnic lunches and the Ritz, and remembered to call on days they didn’t see each other.

Alone in his empty apartment, it was always easy to remember Aziraphale.

In the last few months, with the world ending and all, he felt he had gained some ground with the angel, like perhaps he saw him differently. Saw him as _more_ than a demon. And he would be, well, damned again, he supposed, if he took steps back now. 

It never failed to make him feel guilty, thinking of their time together as a war. Winning favor, losing it again, he hated himself for it, really.

“Well I still don’t know why you would bother with _sushi_ of all human foods but, uh, I haven’t got any other plans tonight so why not angel.”

Pathetic, he was so pathetic, you could at least try to make it _seem_ you might say no you pathetic excuse for a demon.

Despite his knee jerk reaction of self loathing, he realized he didn’t even have to turn around to feel Aziraphale beaming at him; perhaps initially pretending to refuse was an old habit. One he wouldn’t need to bother with anymore. Perhaps the angel wouldn’t send him away for it, now.

He could feel Aziraphale’s lovely hands as they removed his coat, though the elation of that was quickly ruined by the following moment of panic over thinking he had forgotten to wear long sleeves beneath his jacket. Not that he _would _ever forget that, and of course he hadn’t.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale’s voice sounded strange enough that the demon felt nervous as he turned to face him.

“Yes, angel— ”

“No, no turn back around!”

Warily, he did so, wondering what Aziraphale was seeing.

Feather light fingertips brushed the back of his neck, just above the neckline of his shirt. It was ecstasy and agony, both.

“What’s this, here, Crowley?” He had a finger delicately pressing to the right of the spine.

“Ah, what’s what angel I can’t see myself from behind.” Fuck, it was hard to concentrate with Aziraphale’s hands on him; even in this small way.

Then he realized… 

“Oh you mean the scar?” He said, turning back to Aziraphale, certain he had finished looking.

The angel’s face appeared troubled; sad or confused, maybe even both?

“Yes the scar, it’s like a little, hm, half circle; how did you get it Crowley?”

“Huh,” he was rubbing the scar with his hand now, instantly regretting as the path of his own fingers felt like they were erasing Aziraphale’s touch, “Now that’s a hard one. Maybe Rome? Gladiators? Or shit, it might have been here, 1905-ish, I was a suffragette then, you know, and it could have been from shrapnel; mailbox bombs and all. Or you know what, angel I think I was right the first time; knife wound, ancient Rome.”

Throughout all this, the angel’s face hadn’t changed. Crowley was beginning to feel worried, for a, ah, few different reasons.

Aziraphale took a deep and somehow sad breath in.

“No Crowley, I mean how do you even _have_ a scar?”

Oh.

“Why didn’t you just heal it, dear.” The angel was looking at him like he knew what was about to happen, what was about to come out, but how could he? No one did.

“Ah well, healing, that’s not really, uh, within a demon’s power, angel.” He gave a small laugh, hoping he could end the conversation here. Knowing he couldn’t.

His heart was racing so fast it burned.

“Oh, Crowley.” The angel reached forward again, then hesitated, his hand backing from the demon’s face, “Can I— could I maybe touch it again?”

They were staring into each other’s eyes; Aziraphale’s lovely face etched with worry. 

Crowley couldn’t imagine what his own face looked like. Probably blank. If there was one thing he had learned over the centuries, it was composure.

He nodded, hesitantly, then turned back around.

There’s an immense feeling of vulnerability in turning your back on someone. It seemed stupid that Crowley felt it in this moment, and with Aziraphale no less, but he did. Not out of fear of harm, the angel would never hurt him he knew, but he could do something worse.

Aziraphale could learn to know him. All of him. Not the favorable pieces of him he had been giving out for millenia, and more, even, than the intimacy they had earned simply by being alive so long, but _all _of him.

The angel’s fingers brushed his neck again, but only for a moment.

“Do— do you have more, Crowley?” His voice cracked at the demon’s name.

But this, yes, this was the reason he had been asked to turn around again. Not for the scar but for a question. Hard to ask when staring someone in the eyes.

Remaining turned towards the wall, he replied quietly, “Yes angel, I have more.”

“Ah, that’s— is it many more, Crowley?”

The angel seemed unable to stop saying his name tonight.

“Yes, uh, well I have been around for quite a while, as you’ll remember, I am bound then, ngk, surely to have a few.”

Fuck. For a demon he was such a _shit _liar.

Or at least he was when it came to Aziraphale. Gentle hands turned him back around, his eyes once again locked on the angel’s.

Who seemed to be steeling himself.

“Show me them, dear. All of them. Please.”

That last please, damn him. It came out so broken, so sad.

“Aziraphale, do we actually have to, I mean what good could it do, really. There’s no need for… uh,” he was trying to stop this from happening out of habit more than anything. He knew it was coming.

It was strange, in a sense, strange that the angel wanted this. Strange, too, that Crowley wasn’t stopping him. Perhaps the angel did care. 

But he had spoken truthfully, it couldn’t do any good for him to know and, well, it would probably make him sad. And Crowley hated to make Aziraphale sad.

“Of course we don’t have to dear, I would never make you do anything you don’t want, I just— just,” Aziraphale wished to say more, the demon could tell. Whenever he was holding something back, the angel made a little humming noise in his throat.

The demon placed his hand on Aziraphale’s arm, hesitantly, nervously. He had never quite gotten the hang of physical touch, but he was, as always, willing to try anything for his angel.

_His_ angel, ha. Of all the stupid things to do to himself.

“You just, what?”

“I’m just sorry, Crowley, I— I’m just,” he turned his head away; tears welling up in his eyes, “just so, so sorry.

He seemed to lean into the offered comfort of Crowley’s hand, slightly, though he kept his face turned away.

Leaving the demon very, very confused.

“What the heaven are you sorry for, angel? They’re not— none of them are from you.”

And he wasn’t even lying. Immortal enemies or no, Aziraphale had never laid a finger on him.

That shouldn’t have been obvious but it _was_. Even the idea of anything else was absurd.

“But Crowley,” there his name was again, “don’t you see? All those times that, that, you got hurt and I— I,” tears were running down the angel’s face now, “and I couldn’t, couldn’t save…”

For a moment it was quiet, and in the silence Crowley stepped around until him and the angel were facing each other again.

“Hey, hey, Aziraphale. Aziraphale. I didn’t, I never, uh, you couldn’t have saved me from these, uh— .”

He sighed and even to himself it sounded sad.

He took his arm away from Aziraphale’s and the angel tensed up, like he was unsure what was next.

What was next was Crowley taking off his tie, and everything else he had hung around his neck, and placing them gently on the floor, where he couldn’t help but notice they looked terribly out of place in the organized chaos of the bookshop; his shirt then joining them.

He was strangely self conscience, it was only Aziraphale, after all, and besides, he hadn’t noticed yet. Not with Crowley crossing his arms over his chest like he was.

But that… no, it was all or nothing, and here, now, with Aziraphale, Crowley had chosen all.

It was an effort to put his arms down to his sides but he did it; the soft, scarred insides of his forearms facing towards the wall behind him.

Fuck it.

He held out his arm.

And the angel took it so gently it broke the demon’s fucking heart.

“Crowley… how? How could this— oh, Crowley.”

His fingers ran lightly over the organized lines that ran from the demon’s wrist to halfway up his forearm, until he drew his hand back like it burned.

“Why— why, Crowley, how could you just, oh my dear.”

He didn’t know how to respond. For years he had thought about what he would say, what he would do if the angel found out but he had never been able to come up with anything. Probably should have thought of that before he messed up his arms.

Aziraphale was still just staring; at the floor, and not at him.

But hadn’t that been the point in it all? He hadn’t thought.

He hadn’t been thinking about the angel at all.

And he hadn’t thought he would ever care enough to know. Care enough that Crowley would have to explain it to him.

Fuckfuckfuck, what to even say…

“Angel, I—”

And then Aziraphale was reaching for him. Pulling him into his arms; tightly. As if he planned to keep him there forever.

His soft body utterly enveloping the demon’s bony frame; his fingers pressing almost too hard into Crowley’s back, whose face was buried in the angel’s soft curls that smelled like honey.

Then suddenly, Crowley was crying.

And it felt like everything. And he thought he might never stop.

To be held, to be held by Aziraphale.

“Angel, I’m sorry, I— I’m just, I hadn’t been, I wasn’t— fuck.” He was crying too hard to really speak. Aziraphale just held him tighter. There was no space between their bodies, Crowley’s face buried in the angel’s shoulder.

They stayed like that for a long while. Crowley could feel Aziraphale was crying too.

Being hugged, being _touched_, he hadn’t known how much he loved and wanted it until this moment. He could have stayed here in the angel’s arms forever.

As if in response to the thought, Aziraphale backed away, slightly. He had pushed himself back so they could see each other, but kept his hands sort of wrapped around Crowley’s shoulders, still holding him.

He still felt like an utter and complete mess, which was stupid because _he _at least had some warning this was coming. Aziraphale had had none at all and yet had used the time to pull himself back together. 

“Crowley, I’m trying to—” he sighed, and reached up to wipe a tear from the demon’s face, “I’m trying to understand, dear, what— did, did you do this to yourself?”

He saw now the angel wasn’t put together at all, he was just trying to be.

Shit he was going to cry again.

“Uh, yeah, it was— it was a long time ago though angel, you don’t need to worry about it, or— or worry about me, I mean.” 

“I don’t have to worry— how could you even say such a— dear, what you did,” Crowley wondered if the angel knew his hand had drifted back down to the scars, feeling them with the tips of his fingers, “how long ago?”

Crowley sighed, “Maybe thirty years, something like that.”

Aziraphale was looking at him so sadly, his stupid demon heart, that wasn’t supposed to be able to feel much of anything, was fucking breaking.

“Can you,” a sound from the angel’s mouth he couldn’t quite decipher, “can you explain to me why Crowley, please, I— I want to know, I want to _help_ you Crowley, please.”

It was a battle, in his mind. He wanted to keep dismissing it. Pushing it away until Aziraphale forgot, which seemed very unlikely, or gave up, which could probably happen within a few years. Maybe.

But then honestly, what was the fucking point. Of all of it, of _any_ of it.

He had watched human beings stumble about this stupid, beautiful planet for so long now, and when it came down to it, they were all stumbling about looking for the same thing.

Human beings wanted to be loved, they wanted to be cared for and to care for others in return. Their families, their friends, their partners, all to fill the void inside of each and every one of them.

And maybe he had just been down here too fucking long, but he felt that void too.

Crowley _felt _it, that terrible need of people.

So many of them never find anyone at all.

But he had found Aziraphale.

The most beautiful and amazing and kind creature God had ever created.

The demon thought that if he deflected now; if he pushed the angel away, then he may as well cease to exist at all.

What.

Would be. 

The point.

“We might as well sit down, angel. Does, uh, that sound alright?” Aziraphale nodded and Crowley, somehow calmer now, led him to the flat above and to the angel’s favorite couch.

The walk was long and quiet but that was okay. He had already dealt with the worst part of it all. Now he would explain it to him. And he knew it wouldn’t really help, but he owed it to the angel all the same.

They sat on the soft couch, Aziraphale positioning himself slightly farther away from the demon than he usually would have. All resolution left him, only to be rapidly replaced by fear that the angel now saw him as broken, or a hopeless mess, or a _demon_— 

It must have shown somewhere on his face, because Aziraphale moved back towards him, guilt in his eyes.

“Ah, sorry dear. Actually, hm, could I…?”

He moved himself still closer so their knees touched and he could hear the angel breathing.

“Is, uh, is this alright?”

“Yes, of— of course, so long as it’s alright with, uh, you.”

Aziraphale laid a hand on Crowley’s shoulder in affirmation, but at this distance it felt strained so he wrapped his arm across to the demon’s other shoulder, resting it there, softly.

His eyes asked the same question as before, but when it came to being touched by Aziraphale the answer was always yes.

“Well, uh, like I said it was all about thirty years ago, something like that. Uh yeah probably about then because it was just a little over a decade before Adam’s birth and everything started I think. And I guess, uh,” his mouth was strangely dry. It hurt to know he was hurting Aziraphale.

“And— and, right, well I just sort of got tired of the whole thing, angel.”

“Tired?”

“Yeah well, I was always seeing these people, just out in the world and being so_ good_, and you know, it’s just amazing how _good_ they all are, and I just,” it was hard to explain really, what the emptiness that had opened up inside of him had felt like.

He took another deep breath and Aziraphale’s arm tightened around his shoulders.

After everything he had been through and done; how had he ended up a lucky enough creature to be cared for by Aziraphale.

“I kept thinking how I would never be like them, not _really, _not in the ways that counted anyway. Because in the end, they all had a choice, angel, and I— well I had fucked that one up a long time ago.”

The angel opened his mouth as if to say something, but shut it again, silent.

“I wanted to feel like they did I suppose, so I, I—” deep breath again, “I did something no one would expect of a— a demon. And it filled the hole a little, or it felt like it did. Just made everything worse after, but at the time, I don’t know.”

Aziraphale’s other hand was resting on his knee now, drawing a continuous circle on his bony thigh with a finger. The angel seemed unaware he was even doing it.

He was also looking at him, still waiting for more, it seemed.

“And that’s it.”

Aziraphale nodded looking very small. The worst of it now over, the demon relaxed into him more. 

He was learning they fit together perfectly.

“And— and, why did you, ah, stop.” 

Aziraphale’s voice was still shaking.

Oh, right.

“Well, angel, I, uh, ran into you.”

He tried to see what Aziraphale thought but he was keeping his face averted.

“And I guess seeing you made me, somehow, uh, not want to do it anymore.”

There was a slight pause before Aziraphale burst into tears.

Crowley pulled the angel to his chest, a short distance from where they had been, and held him, murmuring comfort the best he could.

It was a long time before his crying abetted, at which point, trying to help the demon added:

“I really think it’s because you’ve always made me feel like I was good; feel like I was a person,” Aziraphale looked up, sniffling, “like we were people, uh, together maybe.”

Which sent him back deep into tears.

Crowley helped him up then, half leading half carrying him, and led him to the adjacent room and sat the two of them on the bed within it, laying the angel down and miracling him into soft, blue, pajamas.

He supposed anyone would want a nap after having to listen to a speech like that.

He laid a hand on the angel’s shoulder, but he wasn’t like Aziraphale; good at comforting, good at people things.

The demon wasn’t good at hoping either, but all the same he hoped Aziraphale would still be able to stand him after this.

The thought was sobering and, after making sure the angel seemed comfortable one last time, he got up to leave.

“Wait, Crowley.”

He turned around, tried for a small smile in the doorway.

“Yes, angel?”

He sat up in bed; looking at him with eyes that were blue pools.

“Stay with me.”

He didn’t want this pity. “I’m not going to hurt myself tonight, angel, or— or ever again, I told you, it was all a long time ago.”

Aziraphale shook his head.

“Not tonight, Crowley, _stay. _Here with me, in the bookshop, just, stay.”

He walked back towards the bed slowly, wanting it more than anything. Sat down again.

They stared at each other as Aziraphale this time, miracled up Crowley’s sleeping clothes, then while still staring at him, moved his legs up and crawled under the covers.

And why shouldn’t Crowley do the same after all.

Lying there together in bed, side by side, at last after all these centuries.

Strange and familiar. Ancient and new.

Aziraphale motioned for him to turn over and he did, only to feel the angel’s arms wrap him up from behind. Their bodies pressed together, legs tangled.

Crowley had wandered the Earth for millennia and after everything had finally found where he wanted to be.

Home.


End file.
